


the balance shifts

by bluecarrot



Series: tumblr tumblr tumblr prompts!!! [6]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Consensual, Consensual Sex, Hate Sex, Human Disaster Aaron Burr, Human Disaster Alexander Hamilton, I Blame Tumblr, M/M, Oh My God, One Night Stands, PWP, PWP without Porn, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Relationship Negotiation, Shameless, Smut, Walk Into A Bar, improper negotiation techniques, kind of a stalker moment, more or less, prompt, you're that guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:20:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7619644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which Hamilton goes to a job interview only to discover his would-be-boss is the man he ... "met" ...  the night before.</p><p>another version of that tumblr prompt from <a href="http://themasterpostblog.tumblr.com/post/143101247620/nerds-are-cool-if-youre-struggling-for-au-ideas">@nerds-are-cool</a>, "first day at a new job and oh fuck my boss is the person I drunkenly hooked up with last weekend/night".</p>
            </blockquote>





	the balance shifts

**Author's Note:**

> written 7/24/16.

Impossible. But there it is. There  _he_ is.

 _I never thought I'd see you again,_  Alex wants to say, in apology, in surprise. That was the expectation; that was his hope. Anonymity. A quick, hot moment. 

But here they are.

The man he picked up at the bar -- or maybe it was the other way around, who can remember -- looks very different here under the fluorescent lights. "Mr Hamilton," he says, and extends his hand. "Aaron Burr. Good to meet you. How is the day looking out there?"

Alex says something vague, he's not sure what. Calm, he needs to be calm, so he tries to be calm and polite and pay the right amount of attention to the other people in the room, he can't just _stare_ , he needs to be confident and personable but all he can think is how he sat down last night near a stranger and said  _What's your name, man?_  and the man said  _I_ _'d rather skip the pleasantries, if you don't mind? L_ _et's go._

And then --

"We were intrigued by your resume," Burr says, now. He's leaning back in his chair, flipping pages. He does not look  _intrigued_ in the least.

Alex tries to give a charming smile but he prepared for a normal interview and there is nothing normal here, he's really, really not sure how to deal with this -- any of this. "Thank you. What about it  _intrigued_  you, in particular?"

"We've never seen anyone hand-write one before," says a woman, and the group laughs. 

Alex feels himself break into a sweat. He's trying to be composed but every time he looks at Burr they're back in the rented room, in the semi-solid darkness, and

_(_ _Alex turned on the light, got up, used the bathroom; he came back out and leaned over to find his clothes and Burr's hand wrapped around his arm and pulled him down again and)_

and

"Thank you for your interest in the position," Burr says; he extends his hand again. It's cool, smooth, it matches his expression. It gives nothing away.

  

The predictable letter arrives. "We regret to inform you ..."

Alex tears it in half and then tears the halves, over and over, until the pieces are too small to hold, too small to control. He's angry. He's beyond angry. He knows that he interviews well, normally; he knows that his resume (hand-written or not) was exceptional; he knows he charmed every face in that room. 

Except Burr.

  

On Saturday Alex goes back to the bar. 

He doesn't know what will happen if they meet again. He doesn't even know what he  _wants_  to happen: to fuck Burr? to punch him? but he goes, and drinks steadily.

He's in the middle of his fourth when a voice says from behind him, sounding like it's got a smile held between its teeth -- "Why, Alexander."

"Aaron Burr.  _Sir_." His voice is too loud. He doesn't care. He doesn't  _care._ He drums his fingertips on the wood, jiggling his leg, not sure what to say, how to make his words the verbal equivalent of the blow he wants to plant in the face of this man -- and then Burr brushes his hand against inside of his arm, leaning across the bar to snag a paper coaster, and maybe it's unintentional but the contact jolts Alex right down into his center, he almost falls off his stool and but grabs at Burr instead and Burr narrows his eyes and says, low: "Ten minutes, then follow me."

Alex nods. His mouth is too dry to speak.

 

Room 302. Again. His hands are shaking. He knocks.

The door jerks open. 

_Burr_.

Alex says, jittery, speaking through anticipation wound so tense it's making his jaw hurt: "I thought last week was -- I thought -- and after that disaster of an interview -- I thought you wouldn't want to see me again, I thought -- um -- Burr?"

"One thing has nothing to do with the other." Burr moves forward.

Alex steps away and his shoulder-blades hit the wall. "You didn't hire me. You passed me over. Because we'd fucked." It feels odd to use the past tense and not the present -- or future.

"I told you, these are separate things."

"You're a liar. You know I'm the best person available, you saw my work -- you saw what I can do. You're a goddamn liar. You just don't want me there all the time because you're a fucking coward." He's ready to fight but Burr lifts up his chin with a graceful hand and Alex straightens under that touch, an unconscious response, something unfurling in his gut, opening up -- 

And Burr smiles down at him. "It's just sex, Alexander. Don't act like it means more than it does." And his other hand moves downwards, feeling the passivity in Alex's body, the waiting.

There is nothing _simple_ about good sex. Alex catches his breath as the fingers trail down lower and his toes curl into the cheap carpet. "If I give you what you want, will you hire me?"

Burr laughs. "You'd do it for free. Be quiet, now." He drops to his knees, to what is usually considered an inferior position -- a supplicant -- but there are different sorts of power, he could do things with his mouth, his teeth, he could make Alex  _hurt --_

He can do it and therefore he does.

 

  
They meet again and again.

The desk staff look on with bleary, disinterested eyes.

The room has become familiar, has become in a sense  _their room_ , though it is as frustratingly and maddeningly impersonal as any motel room in any city. 

Burr pushes Alex down and growls something and Alex shuts his eyes, shuts his eyes, waiting, waiting, _wanting_ \-- 

But Burr will not concede anything more than a rented room and one night a week. He will not give Alex a phone number; he will not even give him an email address. Alex suggests a burner phone and Burr says  _I'm_   _not a fucking drug dealer,_ calls Alex a terrible name, saying any number of uncomplimentary things while Alex crawls over him and bites him, begs with his mouth and his tongue and his words, and Burr knots his hands in Alex's hair so tightly that he thinks _Yes, this time,_ _this time, yes ..._

So he says "We don't have to sneak around, you know, Burr. We could come out a little. Stop hiding."

"I am not hiding."

"You never talk about yourself. You never talk about me. Us. This. Do you? Do you go home and call your friends and--"

"I don't  _talk,_ Alexander. And there is no  _us_." 

Unfair. But Burr is always unfair. He is disinterested in almost everything Alex says or wants or feels or does; he leaves tonight in the same old way, tugging on his pants and buckling them and pulling his shirt down over his middle, covering the new welts there. 

He finds his keys and his phone and steps back to the bed, where Alex is still naked and dazed; he leans over and kisses him and bites down on his mouth and Alex feels that ache between his legs beginning  _again,_ goddamn him, but "I'll see you around," is all Burr says, and he's gone.

Alex would like to murder him.

 

Next week Alex sits up when Burr does; he does not bother to adjust the sheets. Why the  _fuck_  does Burr leave like this? Why doesn't he stay -- why can't they just  _talk_  -- 

"I want to see you again." Even to himself he sounds hard, angry.

"Next Saturday. You know that already."

"No. Sooner than that."  _I don't know what your schedule is like,_ he wants to say.  _We can work something out_ , he wants to say. The words are thick and waiting in his mouth, ready to come out, an apology. He does not say it. (Burr's phone is on the table -- he  _could_  check his schedule, if he wanted to do it. And the volume is turned on, of course, he's replied to messages before, actually  _during_. Alex hates him. It doesn't matter. Burr's a prick but it doesn't  _matter._ )

Dark eyes flick over him. "Wednesday, I suppose."

"Tomorrow."

"Alexander --"

"Tomorrow."

Burr is silent a long moment. Alex watches the slight rise and fall of his chest: is it a little faster? Is there a blush crawling over his cheekbones? 

He finally says: "Tomorrow, then."

 

Alex knocks on the usual door and there is no answer and there's no light or sound from the room and he thinks -- he doesn't know what he thinks -- he's afraid, he is actually _afraid_  and it twists and snarls in his gut and he hates himself again with a quick sharp impulse -- and then the door unlocks and it's dark inside the room and he is pushed up against the wall and and hands are on him and he gasps aloud in pain and desire and joy,  _joy._

Burr pushes him down on the bed and Alex does not turn over as he's expected to do; instead he pulls Burr down tight against him and rolls them both over, Burr is hissing and lashing out with hands and teeth and he's truly angry, Alex has never seen him really angry before, it's almost frightening except that Alex is angry, too. 

"Stop that. S _top it_. I want this. I want you beneath me. _I_ want to be the one --"

Burr swears at him. "Goddammit, Alexander --"

And  _Alexander_  slaps him, hard. It's delicious and thoughtless and he's never done that before but he loves it and he wants to do it again and now he's scared of himself more than Burr: this is a door to a world he didn't even know existed though it's been waiting unlocked all this time. 

He wants to open it. He  _wants it._

_I want you._

Burr is still for a second -- then he returns the blow. " _Fuck_ you, Alex -- "

"Fuck you, Burr," says Alex, but there's no force left in him now; he lets Burr roll them over again, after all; he lets Burr bite him, he lets him, lets him, lets him. 

 

Afterwards in the shower he will shiver all over again, shaking like he's straddling an earthquake. His fingers run over his own body but he can't replicate the taut awareness that Burr brings out in him.

_Alex_ , Burr had said. 

 

Alex hates Burr. He hates himself when they are together. He hates how Burr makes him feel -- that quick impatience, the hot blood thrumming beneath his skin, the cravings that overwhelm him. 

And now, now, there is the history of violence between them; there is his own response, his own hands, his voice saying  _Fuck you, Burr._

He tries to ignore it. He goes out to bars -- more bars, other bars. 

He meets someone. A woman. They go on a date. 

It doesn't work. She's lovely and funny and it does nothing for him.

At the end of the night he kisses her, experimentally. 

She kisses him back. "I had a really nice night, Alex."

_Alex_. How easily she shortens his name, as if the change means nothing at all. 

So he shuts his eyes. Kisses her again. Thinks of Burr.

It's strange -- it's  _different_ \-- it feels almost unnatural to him now to kiss a woman, to be touched gently, and isn't that hilarious? It would make a cat laugh. But she is perfectly fine, really, and anyone would be happy to know her, see her, screw her. Anyone, Alex thinks, who is healthy. Anyone normal.

He ignores her texts for a few days and after that the messages stop.

 

Burr rolls over and checks his phone and drops it back on the nightstand and gets up to shower, sleepy-eyed. The water turns on.

Alex grabs the phone, fingers trembling, praying it's not locked. (It is not locked.) 

He adds Burr's number to his own contact list and replaces the phone exactly as it was, within a hair's breadth. Lays back. 

Breathes even.

 

_why hello there,_ he sends the next day.

It buzzes back almost at once.  _Who is this?_

Alex doesn't reply.

_If this is who I think it is,_ Burr writes, and Alex smiles at the phone, types a response, does not send it; he can taste Burr's fury , even with the distance between them, even though the message is carefully, perfectly phrased and really it could be read in any way at all:  _However did you get this number?_

_you left it unlocked_

_A mistake I won't repeat._

When Alex tries to text over something else, the message won't transmit: he's been blocked.

 

Saturday night. The motel room is empty, dark, still. No answer when he knocks. The desk clerk shakes her head.  _No, he hasn't been, I'm sorry._

So Alex is sitting at the bar -- _their bar_  -- nursing a drink. He's been here almost three hours, earning hard looks from the bartender. 

He's not doing anything. He's not expecting anything. He's just sitting.

Someone walks past and strikes him hard between the shoulder-blades, and no doubt it looks like an innocently clumsy stumble but "Sorry, man," says Burr, without even looking up; he goes to the door and he goes out.

Alex tosses money on the counter and he is gone too

 

\-- they are quick and hot and nearly silent. First one and then the other tenses all over, groans aloud through gritted teeth, finishing hard. Alex bites down on Burr's forearm when he reaches the edge and when he draws back away there is a bruise, raising purple already, barely visible in the shaded light of a single dim lamp. Dark skin, dark bruise, darkness against shadow. 

He licks at it, tentatively, tasting sweat, tasting his own desire. 

_Burr._ A stone in his shoe. A rough edge. 

Burr gets up and leaves

Burr gets up

Burr leaves

he leaves

he leaves

 

Alex finally speaks.

He's practiced this. He's memorized what he wants to say, to get the words right, the timing. 

He waits until Burr stands, tugging on his trousers, buttoning and adjusting, covering up every sign, every bruise, every mark that shows they've been together -- and he says: "I'm not doing this anymore."

Burr actually laughs. "What did you say?"

"You heard me. You understood me. I'm sick of this, I'm tired of you and your bullshit, keeping me at arm's length, your mind fucks, your stupid  _games --_ "

"Is that so?" Burr licks his lips, steps closer, closer, too close. He runs his hand down Alex's side, curling his fingers around his waist, thumbs digging into the flesh at his hip. "And what would you do then, my Alexander? All alone."

Alex is feeling heady, feeling brave. He lifts his chin. "I won't be alone very long. Or maybe I already have someone." He's lying, there is no one else, no one; he only wants to see the reaction.

Burr swears out loud, nails and teeth and breath hard now, climbing on top of him: "I'll make you pay for that, you little  _shit_  --"

 

"I want to have you again," says Burr, in the middle of it. His voice is thick and rough. "Like this. Better. _Tomorrow_ , Alex. I'll have you tomorrow. And you'll behave yourself then, won't you?"

"You don't deserve my good behavior," says Alex; and "Goddammit, don't you dare  _stop --"_

 

Burr is the one who breaks it. He says "here" and there is a note in his voice that Alex finally recognizes as  _trying too hard,_ and then he pulls out something from his wallet. Tosses it at Alex.

A single key, flat and unassuming and freshly-cut.

Alex closes his hand tight around the metal. "Aaron --" 

He knows it's a mistake as soon as the word is out of his mouth. Burr's face shuts down even more than it already was and he snaps "Don't act like this is more than it is."

Impossible to take it any other way.

Alex tries not to act grateful, he tries not to even care, he tries to  _not give a shit_ all the way down to his bones but he must give something away because Burr pushes him off mid-event, he tugs on clothes and collects his things and says something rude and he is gone, gone, and Alex is alone. He puts the key in his mouth on his tongue and lets it rest there, holding it steady, convulsively swallowing down the taste at the back of his throat.

 

So.

Alex knows where Burr lives. Of course he knows. He's followed him home, trailing a few cars behind. He parked in the lot and watched him go inside.

And Burr knew. How long did he know? Did he see Alex out there?

(It didn't mean anything; it was just a tease. It was another thing for him to do when he wanted more, and he so often wanted more. He'd park there and watch the lights go out.)

How long did Burr know? Why didn't he  _say_ anything? _How long did he know?_

 

He gives it a few days, avoids the bar, drives slowly past the little motel room with its one light on, a motionless figure silhouetted inside and looking out.

By Tuesday he cannot stand it anymore.

He uses the key. It is _his_ key. 

_Mine,_ he thinks, and slides it into the keyhole so carefully, so slowly, he hears the noise of each individual notch as it clicks past the tumbler. _Mine, mine._

Burr is sitting on the couch and looking at paperwork. He gets up when Alex comes in and he's already pissed but Alex won't give him a chance to talk, just shuts the door and locks it and then they are on the floor and Burr is swearing at him, biting at him, hitting him, ramming a knee between his thighs in a move that Alex barely reacts fast enough to deny. 

He has never been so happy.

(Afterwards of course he leaves with "Get the fuck out" in his ears. He knows,  _they both know,_ in a few days he will be back.)

 

Strange to see Burr's things laid out. Here is the soap he uses; here is his toothbrush; here is his pillow and his umbrella and his socks, neatly rolled. It formalizes something; it makes it real.

So they are here in the hallway and Burr shivers beneath him, he's gasping and saying something inarticulate, it's like speaking in tongues, like tongues, _yes_ , and Alex is doing his level best to use his own tongue to draw this out s-l-o-w slow _painfully_ slow, he wants to make it absolutely unbearable but Burr is collapsing against him and Alex can't can't _cannot_  control it anymore, he's got his own reaction too, they move together and Alex sees stars. A veritable constellation.

"Alex," says Burr, low; he touches his jawline, his chin, the corner of his mouth. " _Alexander_."

Later. 

Alex _needs_ to get up. He's got a long long drive to his own place and he's kept up half the night every other day and he still has to eat, do laundry, clean his shitty apartment, go to his shitty job, pretend like he gives a shit about the customers'  _bizarrely_  particular coffee orders --

"Go to fucking sleep," says Burr, sounding like he's speaking through a dream; he very well might be asleep himself.

Alex tries to laugh around the terrible constriction in his chest.  _Fuck this._ He shouldn't feel like this, he should have cut this off a long time ago, except -- 

"Sleep, Alex." Burr doesn't even bother to open his eyes.

That feeling gets worse. He can't move around it; he can't even breathe. He's not sure what to do -- he doesn't know -- but he shifts a tiny bit closer and a tiny bit again, and now he's wrapping his arms around Burr like he's wanted to do for so long so long,  _so long,_ and now he's falling asleep with greedy ease.

 

When he wakes up, Burr is gone. (Of course he is gone.) But there's a message -- two messages -- on his phone.  

_I made coffee_

and

_See you tonight._  

Alex rubs his thumb over the words, over the messages held together, like they'll part for him in eager response, like they're a mouth that will open and speak. 

The coffee is quite good.

 

But that night he goes home to his own place, his own bed and covers and low-thread-count-sheets, his own limp mattress ... 

He lays awake and watches the light from the passing cars move over the walls and ceiling. He might be on a tightrope; he might be in a grave. He has that same feeling of suffocation. 

No one texts him. Not that night, not the next, nor the next.

On the fourth day he sends

_your coffee was terrible_

No reply. No reply. No reply.

And he's desolate. What the hell was he  _thinking_? He has no idea what Burr wants; he never has known. Trying to guess always gets him in trouble and now he's fucked it all up, he's ruined it -- 

It doesn't matter. It's  _just sex_. He'll find someone else. The bars are full of men -- and women. He tries not to dwell. 

He dwells.

  

And now he's in the parking lot again and feeling the horrible pressure of denied lust, the ache of self-hatred. Burr's light went off _hours_ ago, he has been asleep for _hours_ while Alex sits here and ... He rests his head on the steering wheel; he swears quietly.

His cell phone buzzes. 

Number unknown. 

_Fucker_ , says the text message, in Burr's voice. 

Alex laughs aloud, flooded with shaky relief. _you shouldn't get too sure of yourself_

_And yet here you are at two am_ , Burr sends back. Then:  _And nine-thirty. And ten pm. And eleven and midnight and one o'clock._

Trust Burr to use proper punctuation even _in extremis_. 

_how long have you been watching me,_  Alex sends without thinking, and immediately adds  _you started it, you turned off the_ _lights_ and then he waits waits waits. 

A moment later: _You have a key, Alex._

That _Alex_ makes him shiver. But instead of getting out he turns on the little interior light and slouches down a bit in the seat and bites down on his lip and undoes the top button on his jeans, and --

Silence, and darkness, from the window, from the cellphone. 

He's almost finished, he's breathing hard and sweating a little behind his knees, when someone comes up to the car door -- Alex only has time to see a trace of movement, darkness against darkness -- and then he's tugged outside and they're pressed against each other and pressed against the car, cursing and biting and angry, both of them, and falling in the weeds and gravel by the side of the lot. It's different this time -- even Alex can feel that, close as he is, lost as he is. They're fighting and he has lost -- but maybe Burr hasn't won after all. Maybe -- 

Burr cries out with a guttural noise and now he's actually trembling, he's coming down with a quiet violence, and "Come on, Aaron," says Alex, "Come on --" 

And they go into Burr's place and Alex turns on as few lights as he can, keeping it as dark, because his own pupils are hugely distended -- he can feel it -- he can feel the adrenaline and energy still traveling through him and through them both. He starts the shower and undresses Burr piece by piece and Burr lets his head fall on Alex's shoulder and then they're together again, silently pulling gravel from each other's skin, coming together to kiss, to touch, to trail fingers in open, unguarded wonder. 

They go to bed and lay motionless, awake, facing each other, silent together in the dark, until one and then the other falls unconscious.

 

Alex wakes; he shifts away a little to see the sunlight move across his lover's face.

Aaron is still asleep, he is still dreaming, and he pulls Alex closer.

**Author's Note:**

> \- i know you don't get physical letters from most (any?) interviews. i don't care  
> \- i know that's not how blocked numbers work. i don't care
> 
> *
> 
> hey um TUMBLR? yes pls  
> @littledeconstruction


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